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MARTIN FABRICIUS TRIO

12

OUT OF THE WHITE IS A REFRESHING, JOYOUS CD FULL OF SURPRISES

Intro

Releases

Martin
Fabricius vibes

vibraphone

Christian
Hougaard

bass

Jacob
Hatholt

drums

Under the Same Sky,
the Martin Fabricius Trio’s new album, just brought out by BERTHOLD records, is
refreshing, accessible, harmonious and surprising. “We’ve been travelling a lot
and playing for audiences around the world, China, Africa, Germany, Denmark and
Sweden,” explains Martin Fabricius the Danish vibraphonist and composer of all
the tracks on the CD. “I think there’s something that connects us all and you
find that in the music.” Fabricius, a practitioner of Taoist Tai-Chi and
influenced by its underlying philosophy, sees all people as somehow connected –
physically and spiritually. “If you hit or sing a note,” he says, “you can make
things in a room resonate like a lamp or a guitar hanging on the wall. It’s the
same emotionally when you play music. It will resonate with other people. It
doesn’t matter whether they are young or old, Chinese or German.”

Together with Andreas Markus
on bass and Jacob Hatholt on drums, both also from Denmark, Fabricius has created
compositions which he describes as “honest, calm and unflashy”. It is precise
and deceptively transparent music. “Writing simple is sometimes very
difficult,” he says. “My ego wants to impress with
fast complex music – Look at me! See what I can do! But over the years I’ve
learned to ignore this and instead choose the notes that move me. Sometimes
they are complex and sometimes very simple – but they come from a different
place.”

UNDER THE SAME SKY (2019)

Earth Song, for example, is a track that works around one chord
until three more appear. Its shimmering simplicity and quiet funky feel somehow
echo American Indian folk music. When offered this description, the composer
suggested that Danish folk music is not all that different.

Morning Child is a track that couldn’t find its title. Fabricius saw
it as a lullaby for adults but that somehow didn’t seem right. “We would ask
the audience,” he reflects. “A few days before the CD was pressed we played a
concert. A woman came up afterwards and said – I heard in this song a busy morning;
the traffic when you ride your bike through the city. She was right. It wasn’t
a lullaby, it was a morning song. I became a Dad last year for the first time
and my mornings have completely changed. I used to sleep late and now I wake up
really early and I’m always greeted with a smile from my son. He’s extremely
happy. Then it hit me. The energy in the song is very much like the energy my
son has in the morning.”

Ascension Day is partly so-called because Fabricius composed it on
that day. He also dedicated the piece and the new album to his father. “He was
very old and in a nursing home for the last years of his life. Very often after
visiting him I thought, maybe that was the last time I would see him. For a
long time I felt I should write some music for him. It was written within 15
minutes. I remember crying at the piano when I wrote it.” The song, in a major
key, has an optimistic light, airy feel. The notes indeed ascend and end on a
high register. The composer’s father died the
following summer.

The trio visited Cameroon and
its influence can be felt on this album. The track Little Africa refers
to that country. “Everything you can find in Africa, you can find in Cameroon.
It’s known as Little Africa. They have jungle, rivers,
savannah, mountains and oceans.” Interestingly, the piece was written as an
expectation, just before the composer travelled to the country.

Once there the trio played
another song without a title. “A woman came up and said – when we played this
the spirit had left her body. That became Spirit Song.”

Martin Fabricius has given
much thought to the musical balance within the trio. “The vibraphone,
acoustically, is not a very loud instrument. Traditionally, when the vibraphone
was invented, people who played it came from the xylophone and they used to
play really fast and impressive stuff – Flight of the Bumble Bee – blindfolded.
To be heard you had to really hit it because of the
poor microphone quality. Nowadays under each vibraphone bar there is one
little pick-up microphone which makes it possible for me to play with more
expression. I can also use electronic loops and delays. The effect is to make
the vibraphone an expressive instrument that sings like a voice.”

The trio have
confirmed dates to present their music in Denmark and Germany but see the world
as their playground. As a part of the Danish Art Council’s program ‘Danish
Music in China’, plans for an Asian tour are in the making.

OUT OF THE WHITE (2017)

Out of the White, theMartin Fabricius Trio's spectacular CD, is
now being reissued by BERTHOLD records. Martin Fabricius - vibraphone,
Christian Hougaard - bass and Jacob Hatholt - drums are joined by guests
Mathias Heise - harmonica and Neff Irizzary - guitar. According to 'All About Jazz' the result is, ”very
refreshing and joyous, with excitement created without pyrotechnics”.

“The pieces were written over three or four years,” says Martin
Fabricius. “They are little stories, like small movies. An earlier recording of
the track Now you see it, now you don't was usedby the artist
who designed the original CD cover. He would put on the music and draw. That inspired me to write
something, a little pop song with a lyric to it, which was like the unborn
drawing calling to the artist - 'please create me, please bring me out of the
white'. It became a hook line which
developed into an instrumental piece. A whole
scene can play out in a piece. It can be small like the melancholia that accompanies
the first cold wind of autumn. It can be moving like the great feeling of
homecoming when you catch up with old friends. Or it can be dramatic like when
I found myself on our staircase listening through flames, smoke, and screaming
sirens for signs of life in my neighbour’s apartment.”

The music on this album is both complex and soothing. Fabricius explains
the origins of the style, “It's a mixture of course of who I am, my
appreciation of nature and also of me studying film music.” He studied in the
United States at the Berklee College of Music where the American tradition of
improvising is strong. Fabricius describes the process, “The melodies are
really kind of simple, like songs almost and they have room for improvisation.
I'd say that the music I write is just one or two pages, three at a max.
Sometimes I write a base line if there is something very specific I want. Other
than that everything is improvised, at least 75%.”

This is true of the recordings which Fabricius says helps keep the music
fresh. “ A lot of stuff just happens on the spot, when we play. The melodies
are very simple and very clear. Everything else around them is different.”